The present invention relates to the article finishing machine art and more particularly to a novel, portable article finishing machine apparatus which can be readily moved manually from one location to another.
Power driven machinery for moving an article finishing and/or restoring block, such as an abrasive grinding stone, in a preselected manner to grind, sharpen or to otherwise finish or restore selected articles has long been known in the article finishing and restoring arts. In this regard, attention is directed to long since and more recently expired U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,320,376, issued to E. Mueller on June 1, 1943; 2,412,141, issued to A. J. Ford on December 3, 1946; 3,063,204, issued to J. G. Baumgartner on November 13, 1962; and, 3,277,610, issued to R G. Mazur on October 11, 1966. These patents, as well as other patents noted in the article finishing and restoring art, teach comparatively complex, large and cumbersome, stationary structures for finishing or restoring various types of tools and other selected articles. However, none of these structures of the prior art have recognized or provided an arrangement which could be mass manufactured and assembled in a straightforward, efficient and economical fashion, producing an article finishing machine apparatus which can be manually portable for efficient commercial and domestic usage.
The present invention, recognizing the need for a power operated article finishing machine apparatus for finishing or restoring finished articles--such as knives and scissors, wood carving tools, cold chisels, and planing blades--provides a unique, manually portable finishing machine which can be readily manufactured and assembled in mass quantities on an economical basis for both commercial and domestic use. The unique hand portable finishing machine apparatus of the present invention can be simply operated by one person with comparatively minimum risk and requires a minimum of storage space when not in use. In addition, the present invention provides a unique and novel structural arrangement which permits ready and efficient removal of a finishing block for finishing surface changes to finish, sharpen, clean, sand and/or polish various selected articles and which allows for protective cover of the finishing block in the assembled machine when not in use. Further, the present invention provides a unique article support arrangement which is readily adjustable to enhance accurate article finishing operations.
Various other features of the present invention will become obvious to one skilled in the art upon reading the disclosure set forth herein.